REGINA — Opposition New Democrats are calling for SaskPower’s rate review application to be scrapped, on the grounds that the panel isn’t being provided the full information.
On Tuesday the NDP released a letter from NDP SaskPower critic Aleana Young to Albert Johnson, chair of the Saskatchewan Rate Review Panel. In that letter Young requested the panel scrap and restart the rate application process, because it was “incapable of being properly adjudicated on the record currently before the Saskatchewan Rate Review Panel.”
At a media scrum outside of SaskPower headquarters, Young elaborated on some of the points in her correspondence to Johnson. She claimed that “clearly, the Rate Review Panel has not been provided full, transparent, or accurate information by SaskPower.”
She pointed to the Rate Review Panel being set to conclude public consultations on Friday. But she said that despite the “recent leak showing the staggering $26 billion lifetime cost” of the government’s plan for the coal refurbishment plants, “no additional information has been provided to the panel.”
“And this public window for feedback is due to close in just three and a half days. Families, farms and small businesses are being forced to accept a rate hike that will be pushed through without any real information or consultation process grounded in reality. This isn't transparency. This is a cover-up with a deadline.”
Young also pointed to SaskPower's rate application having “failed to account for the return of industrial carbon pricing, despite confirmation from Environment Minister Darlene Rowden that her government was actively negotiating to bring this back onto the electricity sector. Premier Scott Moe has recently confirmed this.”
Young also said that at the only public forum held during this process, SaskPower officials “had to claim that there would be no industrial carbon pricing. Now, either these people are being kept in the dark by the government that they are desperately trying to serve, or they're being forced to toe the government line instead of doing what is best for the Crown and its customers.”
Young also told reporters that the “ongoing claim that Saskatchewan has no option but to double down on mid-century coal technology because of an unenforced, unenforceable, and now politically abandoned regulatory framework, frankly, does not withstand any level of scrutiny.”
“Spending $26 billion to rebuild unabated lignite coal generation on the premise that Saskatchewan somehow can't build combined cycle natural gas because it would have to have some sort of imaginary CER compliant technology makes no sense. Why would we build a higher risk, higher cost, higher intensity, higher emitting option? This has no serious basis in logic, in economics, or modern utility planning.”
The Rate Review Panel is to decide on SaskPower's application for a 3.9 per cent rate increase in 2026 and 3.9 per cent in 2027. The 3.9 per cent increase for 2026 is already in effect on an interim basis since February.
The opposition NDP have been campaigning against the increases. In recent weeks, they have also gone on the offensive against the government's plans to extend the life of coal generation to 2050, with the NDP claiming that plan would cost $26 billion.
The Sask Party government has consistently taken issue with that number, saying that the true capital cost of extending coal is $2.6 billion. In March, Minister for Crown Investments Corporation Jeremy Harrison had told reporters that the other 25-year costs are “for maintenance, for sustainment, for operating, for salaries, for mining, for fuel, for transmission, including for upgrading and sustaining the transmission.”
“These would be costs incurred regardless of the power generation method, whether that was gas or any other method,” Harrison said.
In a statement issued last week, the government pointed to comments in a May 14 media scrum at the Legislature by SaskPower CEO Rupen Pandya. The government said Pandya had “confirmed that the NDP’s Grid and Growth Plan is eight times the cost of the government’s plan to maintain reliable and affordable power for Saskatchewan into the future – $21 billion compared to $2.6 billion."
“That means the NDP’s plan leaves little money for the important services Saskatchewan people count on, like health care. This is the same party that mixed up revenue expenses and is questioning the leadership of their leader. This is why no one can take the NDP seriously,” they stated.
